


Fade to Black

by Carradee



Series: Stories Written in ±2005 [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
Genre: Angst, Gen, Jedi purge, POV First Person, Sad, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carradee/pseuds/Carradee
Summary: I should’ve known it would come to this.  Black boots followed by white, stepping off a landing ramp in time to mechanical breathing.It's only a flash, only a second into the enemy’s future showing me what he’s going to do before he decides to do it. That’s usual, even though this particular enemy isn’t anyone I thought would come after me.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This draws on _Dark Rendezvous_ and not the Republic Commando books that mentioned/had this character, since they hadn't been released when I wrote it.
> 
> Can stand alone or be read as a sequel to [Mutters](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8532103).

Eleven years post- _RotS  
_ (8 BBY)

* * *

 

**I**

I should’ve known it would come to this.

_Black boots followed by white, stepping off a landing ramp in time to mechanical breathing._

It’s only a flash, only a second into the enemy’s future showing me what he’s going to do before he decides to do it. That’s usual, even though this particular enemy isn’t anyone I thought would come after me.

Why would Skywalker remember me? My midichlorian count is less than a tenth of what his was, so low that I was almost sent to the Jedi Service Corps despite the war that made the Order need every combatant they could get.

I watch the man who’s unknowingly relayed news of my coming termination; only grimace when another wave of pain grips me. My old control, my old mask reappears as if I haven’t spent almost as long rid of it as I spent learning it.

Riller—I always call him “Glit”(terstem) in a southern Corellian drawl that hides my native refined Coruscanti—smiles as he pulls a flask of ale from his desk. “Eh, we can worry about the Empire when they make their demands. As for now, happy nameday—”

I’m well-known for casual insolence, and he seems to have finally noticed that’s missing, even if he hasn’t realized what I’m admitting with what’s replaced it.

“…Loony?”

_The black-encased figure pauses, examining the eddies of the Force with much more care than he did years ago, when his sensitivity was oh-so-greater._

I answer Glit with an impassive blink. Master Yoda would be proud. _There is no emotion._

My body wants my knees to give out. I let them, falling into the chair I rarely use.

Sweet little Hal enters the office at a dead run.

‘Little.’ Hah. He’s older than I am. But then, I did get to overhear his father—his actual father, not the friend who’d adopted him after General Halcyon’s death—sing his dear son’s praises and tease General Skywalker about galactic senators and their friends who tossed them into chancellors’ nameday cakes. In another life.

I don’t think General Skywalker ever realized that joke was about him; he’d been terribly drunk when he did that to Senator Amidala. She’d said that he’d come looking for her in a bar; it’s more likely that she’d sought him to keep him out of trouble. He was the drunk one, and she _had_ lobbied for Coruscant Highway Patrol to stop ‘obstructing justice’ by giving Jedi traffic violation tickets. She won.

General Skywalker and Senator Amidala. I try not to think about them much. _There is no ignorance._ I don’t want to slip. I flopped the one mission Master Yoda ever sent— _took_ —me on badly enough.

Hal hauls me up easily, even with the extra pregnancy-induced weight added to my lithe frame. Seventy kilos is heavy for a small girl one and a half kilometers tall, even if she struggles to keep the minimum twenty-percent body fat needed for a woman to stay healthy.

Those bosses I listen to have been nice enough to avoid mentioning that I’m unusually muscular for a woman in my condition. Hand-to-hand combat is my forte; I’m not about to lose that because of the baby. If that means I must use Jedi katas for exercise, so be it.

“Loony,” Hal says, “I’m sorry—if I had any idea he was after Ian…”

I think my impassivity scares Hal, who recognizes it and hides the same training. He’s partially right, though. Finding out that Ian won’t be around for his baby’s birth was a nasty surprise this morning. I’d been looking forward to seeing him for the first time in weeks, sneaking a kiss at least, and maybe more if we had a roundup to do. I’ve had a few weeks’ medical leave to (officially) recover from a previous assignment’s ‘strenuous circumstances’ and (unofficially) avoid the Jedi hunter that Imperial influence was forcing CorSec to cooperate with.

‘Strenuous circumstances.’ Hah. Ian and I made him while waiting to jump a Black Sun operative, or in one of those empty hours between arranging to meet a contact and actually meeting him. The mini-explosion of my son’s ignited spark in the Force had been weird—shielded by Ian, so it wouldn’t alert others—and actually sensed by me.

That had been one of my good days.

Another vise of pain grips me. I smile weakly.

I have to watch what I say. Glit doesn’t need to know what Hal does. He suspects it, certainly; but besides ‘Jedi brat’ Hal, there’s only one man I’ve trusted with what I was. And he’s now on Kessel, courtesy of an Imperial investigator overeager to destroy _somebody_ before the bureaucrats hanged him, who wouldn’t—and didn’t—recognize a former Jedi if he saw one.

At least Sideous and Vader won’t notice Ian there. Ian always found it amusing that Darth Sideous had so carefully planned his master’s death that he’d managed to forget to terminate his master’s other projects.

Ian hadn’t been one, himself, but his mother had. She’d been barely sensitive,some sort of witch; not a Jedi, but not entirely a Darksider, either. At least, I think she wasn’t a Darksider. I’m lucky to perform minor telekinesis on a _good_ day, much less anything complicated; and good days come once every few months.

All the same, Ian dared not marry, dared not do anything that might draw Sideous’s attention to him or anyone he cared about. Especially not when he decided to love me.

I’d known all this about my lover before even considering…

The vise grips me again, reminding me that I should probably ask for a medic. And that I probably would’ve been kicked from the Order, imprisoned if not executed before reaching Knighthood if the Masters had thought me studying some things I now know.

If I’d even reached Knighthood. My chances always were slim to none, raised to a possibility only because the Order needed everyone they could get in the war. And even then, I narrowly escaped the Service Corps.

_The black figure stands still long enough for his attendant troopers to fidget, recognizing that he’s tracking, identifying, someone he once knew._

In another life.

Plagueis (and therefore his apprentice) claimed to be Sith with the ability to ‘create life’. _There is no passion._ I almost laugh, General Skywalker’s ‘inexplicable’ lack of a father explained in a horrific manner.

Sith choose one apprentice to mold and control, true. But it’s often easier to do so with a child of your own making.

I know more non-Jedi techniques than even Master Dooku, I bet. Ian’s witch-mother had been well trained by Plagueis, who’d wanted to study someone from another Force tradition but without enough sensitivity to be a threat. She’d followed Plagueis’s precedent of teaching her student, her son, everything she knew. That was one bad habit Ian retained with me.

Hal’s lack of telekinesis comes from being a Halcyon, not from limited Force sensitivity. Ian usually covered for both of us.

“ _Loony_!” A slap draws my attention.

I grit my teeth through another contraction. “See to Corran, Hal.” Finding one Jedi on Corellia will only drive Vader to seek out any others that might linger in my proximity. Hal has a wife and son to worry about.

And I’m starting to sound like Master Queen Dog of the Library, as a few of the bolder Padawans and older Initiates called Master Jocasta Nu, Head Librarian, who when faced with proof of a locale not in the archives archly insisted that it couldn’t exist.

 _False pride_. One reason Yoda liked me; scrapping through every step of training stole any scraps of Jedi arrogance headed my way.

A glance at Glit and Hal show they’re not buying that I’m okay. I force myself into the façade I’ve developed over the past decade, donning a presumably ‘easy’ cocky grin so common to Corellians. I flick my hair back for good measure. It’s braided, granted, but it’s sloppy enough to leave some hair on my cheeks. “I’ve been off so long… Isn’t it your turn?”

Hal frowns. “Loony…”

“Why don’t you both take the day off?” Glit offers in surprising generosity. I examine him sidelong, but he’s oblivious that today will be my last.

_The black-booted feet consider a few different directions._

“Ian will be missed by all of us,” Glit says, “but that doesn’t mean his closest friends shouldn’t have some room to mourn.”

If Kessel kills him, I’ll be surprised. Ian clawed his way out of the inherent narcissism he’d been raised in, but with my death… I flick my hair again, flick aside memories of—

 _There is no death._ I close my eyes, aware that even as I do so the telling impassivity returns, as does another contraction, this one strong enough to make me breathe in sharply. Will the Force accept me after I die? Or has consorting with a Darksider tainted me beyond recognition, much less acceptance?

Even Master Iron Hand would be hard-pressed to identify this redheaded gal in casual florescent purple slacks and V-neck sack top as the clever kid she knew, much less with the pregnant belly swelling out of the shirt. Or the well-worn blaster strapped to my hip. Or the ‘forgotten’ bra.

Much easier to distract criminals that way, I’ve found. Many stare so hard at my assets that they don’t realize I’m dangerous till I get off at least one shot, maybe two. That’s a nice thing about being pretty and soft and _young_. An hour past twenty-five.

Hal’s worry spikes—I jerk with surprise that I’m even aware of it. When I look at him, he’s glancing past Glit at the flimsies on his desk. The top one tells exactly who the Emperor has sent, this time. He never met Anakin Skywalker, but he knows I _did_.

“A good day?” Hal asks quietly. _Black boots move._

Too good.

* * *

**II**

The walk to the med center isn’t too bad. Walk a few minutes; pause and breathe through a contraction until it lets up. I daren’t hope to give birth in time to hide my son, to spare him my fate. My Force ‘gift’ gives me an extra second, an instant into the enemy’s future of what he’s about to decide. Nothing more.

I’m going to die. We both are, my son killed before even given a shot at life. Ian will know, even though he’s parsecs away, in Kessel’s spice mines. And he’ll make them pay for it.

Darling, cocksure Ian—a pain in the arse with his protection complex, and terrifying when his temper’s roused. He always did take care of the (unusually) young CorSec girl, not deceived by the birth certificate Senator Organa had forged for me that gave me a few extra years to be old enough to have a quiet degree in hand-to-hand combat, with private trainers willing to swear they’d tutored me.

Mister Horn—Hal’s adopted father—had gotten CorSec to at least give me a try. My past was clean—more than clean, I’d taken a roundabout route to Corellia after Order 66, so anybody who ignored the signals that I could be a former Jedi had plausible deniability. Thanks to the detailed classes every Jedi Initiate went through and some crash studying to make sure I used the lingo appropriate for civvies and the new Empire, I easily passed the exams to become a CorSec officer.

Curse the Empire! Can’t a girl _live_?

Not a Force-sensitive girl; she’s too dangerous. Jedi, trained Force sensitives, are infinitely more so.

That I’m an exception—too weak in the Force to count as a sensitive, too strong to count as a null—does me little good, since all Jedi are Force sensitive, able to access the Force at will. Therefore I, a former Jedi, must be Force sensitive. Simple logic, logic granted an exception on my part when my parents begged my Finding Master to relieve them of the extra mouth they couldn’t afford to feed. Not that I was ever supposed to know about that.

Farewell, Ian.

Tears threaten, but I can’t let them stay. They’ll do no good. I’m trapped, just like Whie Malreaux was trapped by his vision that said Skywalker would kill him. Whie assumed that meant he’d Fall; instead, it meant he died buying me time to escape.

As a Jedi, I lived in fear of ending up a civilian, for most thought I didn’t belong; now that I am a civilian—or at least more of one than a Jedi is—I am doomed for my onetime belonging to the Jedi Order.

When this next contraction takes me, I ride through it with a simple pain management meditation, one of the few I was able to learn in my few good days. I’m already dead; why not take advantage of the rare Force manipulation available to me today?

CorSec isn’t stupid; they suspected what I was, I’m sure. The testers had grilled me, looking for slip-ups that would’ve made me more of a liability than an asset. I can only surmise that the many months spent learning how to be un-Jedi did me good, for they hired me. And listened to me, a greater compliment.

I enter the emergency room mid-contraction. The nurses look at me and immediately admit me to a maternity ward.

They try directing my breathing, at first. That’s before they realize I’m doing perfectly fine on my own.

I recite the Code in my head—not the simple version that adorned the door to the Council chambers, but the full code of law that Jedi had to subscribe to. That’s not very interesting, and even less useful for my coming visitor. I drop it before I get very far; far before the ‘no attachment’ ideal that nobody ever bothered to concretely explain. So many Jedi fell because of that, because they mistook the _ideal_ for the actuality, the oversimplified statement for the truth it stood for.

Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. All true, when they’re out of control. That doesn’t mean that Jedi can’t feel or produce them—even Master Billaba slaughtered who knows how many people in the Summertime War on…wherever she went insane. Every civil person has to learn how to control themselves. The Jedi were no different. If we controlled ourselves more than most, we were also more dangerous than most people, as well.

Are more dangerous. And I’m going to die for it.

 _There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force._ The only one of those oversimplified rules I haven’t broken in excess would be the ‘knowledge’ one. Since I’m not dead yet, I of course can’t adhere to that rule.

“You _walked_ here?!”

I don’t blame white-haired Ellen for her dismay, but I won’t be responsible for her death—not hers or anyone else’s that I can help. Call it my Jedi stubbornness if you like; I prefer to call it decency and kindness.

I move my arm away from Ellen’s hand, away from the stimulant patch she would have me wear. I don’t need a stimulant.

_The black boots move swiftly up stairs, white ones following. Black pauses, and the Whites move into position on the stairway, some leaving to block the other exits._

Death will hurt enough.

“Please leave.” I don’t bother with my old façade.

Ellen blinks at me. She’s tended enough of my injuries—sent enough bacta patches my way—that she’s used to my Southern Corellian. The sudden Coruscanti startles her. The others don’t move, either.

“Get out.”

Ellen checks my pulse. “Of course, you’re cranky—“

I yank my arm away, though I don’t bother to sit up. I’d rather not learn that I can’t by trying and failing. “I’m _not_ cranky,” I correct her with the precise irritated diction holocomics once imitated when mocking hero General Kenobi’s banter with General Skywalker. In another life.

 _That_ gets Ellen’s attention, if not that of the two younger nurses. Her eyes widen. “Miss…”

“Get out, Ellen.” I speak calmly, keeping the accent. “You don’t want anyone in his way.”

Our eyes meet; she doesn’t need to ask who _he_ is. I’ve mentioned him before. In quiet acquiescence, Ellen gathers the other nurses, who obey their superior despite their confusion.

_A hand raises with the Dark Side energy that casts open the Med Center main entrance._

“You have two minutes to clear the hall,” I warn Ellen. Two minutes before he gets here.

My unborn son and I have fewer than three minutes left alive.

* * *

 

**III**

_Mechanical breathing—black armor—reaches the door and doesn’t stop._

“General Skywalker.” I don’t open my eyes as he flings the door open, but I hear him pause.

“You will call me by my name.” The steady mechanical breathing is creepy, a form of enslavement in itself. The very concept of slavery used to drive him up the bulkhead. How does he stand it?

“General?” _There is peace._ One of the few things Senator Organa told me before shipping me to Corellia: Senator Amidala believed (her) Anakin was still in there somewhere. Not that Organa said it outright, but I was well versed at picking up meaning from hints even then. If anyone knew Skywalker, she had.

 _Had._ I’ve never been convinced that Skywalker killed her, either, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Palpatine’s made him believe it.

“I am Lord Vader.”

I gasp at the pain of this vise. The mask tilts to the side as he considers me: a fallen Jedi, doomed to die, doomed to lose my son even as I birth him.

But I’m not really _sensitive_ ; might he not… No, no might. He’ll take his time; that’s why he hasn’t drawn his blade on me yet, though the threat in his voice warns that he considers my previous address an insult.

Why did I call him ‘General Skywalker,’ anyway? “My apologies, m’lord. Lord Tyrannus always did prefer being called ‘Count Dooku.’”

He’s startled. I can sense a Sith’s emotions. That they’re slimy like Ian’s makes me shiver.

“You…surprise me, Padawan.”

He remembers me. He must remember Whie, too, then: poor Whie, who foresaw his death coming at Skywalker’s hands and thought it meant that he himself would Fall to the Dark Side, not Skywalker. And that, after he didn’t turn, he wouldn’t be killed. The future is ‘always in motion,’ after all. I’d reminded him of that.

How stupid we were. Whie’s foresight _always_ came true.

Another ‘gift’ of Darth Sideous?

“It’s ‘officer’,” I correct him tersely as this vise starts. “I’m in CorSec…” Fool! Now he’ll go after Hal!

“Thank you for that information.”

“What ‘information’? That I was able to be the normal person I would’ve eventually been anyway?!” I can’t believe I tipped him off about CorSec. I know better.

He shifts slightly. Had he not remembered my abnormal (for a Jedi) normalcy? More likely he never knew; in our other life I was virtually useless and I wasn’t the Naboo Senator: nobody worth General Skywalker’s notice. Can he not notice now?

“Clearing the hall to accept your death. How Jedi of you.”

A verbal attack?! What, trying to convince me of my Jedi-ness? …Or convince himself? Curse the thought-fogging pain! “Try realistic! Not everyone’s blessed with outrageous amounts of midichlorians, Oh Great Chosen One!”

_Red flash—_

His lightsaber slices my side open as I scream from the one-second premonition. There’s a cursed instant where the pain from the vision and pain from his blade overlap, making the final pain from his blade an improvement.

He avoided the baby. _There is knowledge._ The premonition tells me aim with weapon, and this abdominal delivery is going to be a living Hell.

Tears make it impossible for me to see.

I gasp, somewhat grateful for the good day that makes it possible to think despite the damage, to release pain into the Force if I concentrate. “Curse you, Skywalker,” I pant. So the suit has significantly dulled his Force sense, but it’s still far better than mine. “My apologies for the insult, m’lord.”

“Really.” He doesn’t believe me. I don’t blame him; I don’t really believe myself.

So why lie? “No, not really.” He wants me to call him ‘Lord Vader.’ Lord of what? He isn’t a lord over me. “General.”

I scream from another strike.

“ _Silence_!”

My laugh’s hysterical. “So I can become another nameless, faceless Jedi you’ve killed and forgotten?! I don’t think so.”

“I remember everyone!”

 _Everyone?_ By the Force. “I’m sorry.”

Abruptly, the living Hell before me doesn’t seem so bad. As for after it—well, that’s in the Force’s hands. I took mine out of it years ago when I started putting them somewhere no Padawan’s should go and ultimately made this baby.

Silence but for the harsh mechanical breathing and the too-familiar hum of an ignited lightsaber. I get enough of a handle on the searing pain to squint at him as I struggle to breathe properly. This can’t be good for the baby. Though why I should worry about that moot point now is beyond me.

 _Force!_ Another vise makes me scream.

The cold hand on my belly makes me flinch, but the pain recedes. The recession is nice, though the…tinge to it is nauseating. Not much worse than Ian’s, really.

No worse than Ian’s.

I don’t say ‘thank you.’ Just his help is a break from Sith principles, even if he is going to kill me in a few minutes.

“You loved her.” I know I’m hanging myself by revealing my knowledge to Vader, but I’m dead anyway. He stiffens. “Senator Amidala.” He’s frozen, staring at me, astonishment and bewilderment radiating in his Force energy. And pain. “She had good taste.”

Insulted. “Had.”

“I would say _has_ , but I’m not sure if Force-strong people can consciously linger in the Force after they die.” Honesty. I wonder how often he hears that.

“Like you.”

I think my silence answers that as well as a reply would, and I’m drained. It’s so cold in here… I almost wish for the end, though I cringe at what Ian’s response to that will be. I swallow tears.

Incredulous. “ _I’m_ ‘good taste’?”

Shrugging is an impossibility. “You don’t kill indiscriminately.” This vise makes me squeak in pain before Vader catches and numbs it for me. I guess he likes this conversation. “You’re almost sane,” I say quietly. _There is serenity._ “At least you have a reason when you kill people.”

“…Thank you.”

Offering a Sith a compliment. If the Masters were going to be wary of my before, they will certainly shun me now.

“He’s lied to you a lot, hasn’t he?” Palpatine. That’s the way of Sith: everyone else is _always_ expendable. In the several seconds of silence that follow, I wonder if I’ve pushed him too far.

_Black hand lowers—red humming light vanishes._

“Do you want to live?”

I don’t bother to look at my torso, the sides sliced open. It would make me throw up. Kidneys, intestines… I know there’s more in that area that’s overcrispy at the moment. Curable, probably, but Vader has a Master to sate, one who will undoubtedly notice if he neglects to kill the Jedi he’s found. “Thanks, General, but…bit late for that, huh?”

He considers it, nods and—

_Red light, swift exploding pain and abrupt blindness._

I screech with the rough abdominal delivery, expert only in Vader’s handling of his lightsaber. He used to be better, but he does manage quite well even with all that added machinery.

When I can see again, he holds my son, but I can’t feel any more concerned than I would’ve been if Ian were the one there, holding the boy.

“I should’ve been a politician” like Senator Amidala.

Can I be heard? Probably not. Pity I wasn’t born on Naboo; that would’ve been doubly ironic.

_White-tinged red light exploding into—_

_There is the Force._

There’s also an insane Sith in charge of the galaxy.

* * *

 

**IV**

The corpse looking at him lacked the useless fury or pitiful begging of an enemy; lacked the inhuman serenity or pity of a Jedi. It was a face full of pain, yet…understanding, as if she recognized the man beneath the armor, knew what had driven him to be what he was.

It wasn’t pity. And it as sure as the Dark Side wasn’t compassion.

There was some fear, certainly, but for another. Not fo herself or the child—she’d accepted him as dead with herself. Concern for someone else, someone she thought much like him. Vader.

Vader had killed many Jedi since his fiery birth. Jedi begged—for him to spare them, others; himself. They condemned what he had become.

This woman had not. She had _accepted_ him, Sith though he was.

She’d been a civilian.

Lord Vader stared at what remained of Padawan—

 _No,_ he corrected himself. _Officer_. Officer what? Not Enwandung-Esterhazy, and he hadn’t asked. He had been surprised to realize that she’d survived so long, though it made sense. She would be hard for a hunter to find, after she escaped the dismantling of the Order. More midichlorians than most, but not enough to actively access the Force.

He held her son, who squalled from his mother’s passing. He let the boy cry. There was no shame in it.

The Force shone in the boy, more brightly than he would’ve expected. Who was the father, another Jedi? _No._ CorSec’s face, her…comprehension, belied that. Surely Master Yoda’s favored Padawan hadn’t come to love a Darksider?

More likely the Force came as a throwback from her, and the child had been an unfortunate side effect from a security mission gone wrong. CorSec hadn’t bothered wishing for something besides what she knew had to happen; it would have been impossible for her to hide from Vader.

Not Jedi fatalism—pure realism.

His troopers didn’t comment when he returned to them with the infant. He had a commander quietly find a nurse for the child and didn’t contact Corellian Security yet, waiting for the news first. Holovids by the end of the day revealed the woman’s death: “Loony,” Tass Marjole was called, notorious for her exceptional albeit insane security maneuvers that usually ended up working.

Polite inquiry into her personal connections failed to produce news of any marriage, and her superior officer, a man named Riller, proved less empty-headed and braver than Lord Vader expected.

“Why did she die, my lord?”

He stopped at the door. The man had no idea of Miss CorSec’s former Jedi connections, and it made little difference. They both knew who had killed her. “An unfortunate case of mistaken identity.”

“She was a blasted good officer. I won’t be able to replace her.” The man wasn’t accusing him; he was understandably upset.

“The Empire extends its apologies.”

“That’s two exceptional officers that I’ve lost to accidents in the past few weeks. I don’t suppose the Empire plans to take any more?”

“Two?”

“Inspector Baite sent Ian to Kessel for no good reason besides the bureaucracy getting hot on his butt.”

“You are…bold, to speak to me this way.”

“It’d be bold if I lacked evidence. I’m respecting the dead, my lord. Loony would have done the same were she here; just filling her place.” The man smiled wanly. “She was a blasted good officer.”

Vader hated Imperial governors and inspectors who gave the Empire such a bad name by their political nonsense. “I will look into the matter.”

Riller bowed. “Thank you, my lord.” He hesitated. “Loony was…”

“Her child died.” The lie came easily even as Lord Vader decided what to do with the infant. Miss CorSec had called herself Marjole: Tallis Marjole, in honor of his mother, then. Padawan Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy, Officer Tass Marjole, had been no threat to the Empire. He didn’t mind giving her the honor she was due, at least for the gift she’d provided the Empire.

A trip to Bast Castle and permanent employment for the nurse wouldn’t be too difficult to arrange; nor would it be hard to avoid exposure of his adoption. Few knew he had taken the infant. The troopers involved were expendible.

Darth Sideous would not rule forever; one day, he would be replaced, overthrown by his apprentice as Sith tradition dictated. In that day, the apprentice would become the master.

And that master would need an apprentice.


End file.
